2019 country of honour

The Country of Honour designation celebrates and showcases New Zealand’s international education connections with partner countries.

In 2019, ENZ joined with the Japanese Embassy to celebrate the growing education connections between New Zealand and Japan.

Misa Kitaoka, ENZ’s Senior Market Development Manager for Japan, said the timing couldn’t be better to showcase Japan.

“It is an exciting year for Japan and New Zealand relations, with Japan hosting the Rugby World Cup in September this year, and the Olympics and Paralympics in 2020.

“NZIEC will leverage the attention this will bring to celebrate the strong education relationship between our two countries as well as to ignite a renewed, strategic partnership with Japan that presents new business opportunities for our industry partners.

“We look forward to celebrating this relationship with conference delegates in August, and already have lots of ideas of how to showcase Japanese culture at the event.”

Japan is New Zealand’s third largest source of international students, with more than 10,000 Japanese students enrolled here annually. These numbers are on the rise, showing solid growth particularly in the school sector.